Sir Nick Faldo believes Ian Poulter has too many distractions, including his clothing business, a house he is building and Twitter, and is not focusing enough on his golf.
Poulter (L) and Sir Nick at the 2008 Ryder Cup
Poulter has had a poor start to the year and although he is a former winner of the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship, he crashed out in the first round last week and conceded he had played poorly.
Poulter's mood soured when hearing criticism of his performance by pundit Bruce Critchley's and he promptly rushed off to answer Critchley on the social network.
And it is this type of action that Faldo, a strong supporter of Poulter, feels is bogging his fellow-Englishman down.
Poulter has admitted to being distracted by problems with the house he is having built in Florida and Faldo, who made Poulter a captain's pick at the 2008 Ryder Cup and was fully justified in doing so when Poulter turned out to be one of the stars of his team, is urging Poulter to "get back to basics".
"Poults has just got too much going on, in my view," Faldo told the Daily Mail this week.
"He's got the house in Orlando, which has taken years to build. He must have lost a fortune on it given the way the market has gone.
"He and his wife have just had their fourth child. He's got the worry of keeping his clothing company afloat and then there's the fact he's always tweeting like crazy.
"I watched him on the practice ground at the Accenture last week and there he was, bouncing away and tweeting furiously instead of putting in some quality time on his game.
"Was it any wonder he was all over the place, his feet flying everywhere, and lost heavily in the first round? He's supposed to be a match play specialist. But you can't be that without putting quality time in on the range.
"I'm hoping he will be shocked by how he has started the season."
golf365.com